bathroom people - opinions on brands

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Hi, looking at getting our bathroom redone. Complete overhaul needed including taking some space from adjacent room and moving everything about so pipes need moving. Had various quotes which all agree roughly on labour costs. Company we're currently favouring is suggesting the following brands in order not.to go over budget:

Taps - Tavistock
sink/vanity unit and wall cupboard, bath and toilet - Roca
shower - Linea

I know there are probably better brands (aqualisa for shower, grohe for taps etc) but I think unless we go down the route of sourcing everything ourselves then they are out of our price range. Are these reasonable quality does anyone know?

Watching with interest as we are doing the same (apologies for not having any advice, though!)

Yes those are all fine I have used all of those apart from the taps I always use roca baths in developments.

Stick with Hansgrohe or Grohe for Brassware and you want regret it.
Roca is not bad at all for china and vanity units but also look at V&B. Its not as expensive as you think it is.
Shower screens - Too many brands to choose from but Aqata, Matki, Kudos, Majestic etc are the better ones.

Dont compromise on the fittings and the cost of remedial work will far exceed the cost of buying proper quality first time.

Grohe not in everyones budget though. I have a hansgrohe currently and it is broken so probably colouring my view Only had it 15 months PITA

Crosswater taps are good and often Bathstore has a sale on their taps. We have quite a few of them and they are fine. Modern designs.

We're just doing ours and have gone for Matki shower screen/doors, Crosswater taps & shower fittings. Not sure about WC/Sink/Bath.

Source your own - there's is so much choice plus you are only doing one bathroom. I suspect that you will regret not shopping around and looking at other brands yourself. Even within one brand, there will be the value end and high end ranges - e.g you can actually buy basic Grohe range from Screwfix.

Personally, I have used Roca, Ideal Standard, Bristan, Hansgrohe (all from Plumbase), Bathstore and even B&Q to source items for bathroom renovations x 4. I splurged on Hansgrohe Raindance showers and managed to make some savings on 8mm sliding shower doors from the half price sale which they seem to have pretty frequently. (Lusted after Matki and Laufen but couldn't afford it for 3 bathrooms!)

Another tip, choose your item and find the best price you can source it for from the internet and then ask your bathroom installer to match/beat the price which is what we did. Looking back at my spreadsheet from 2012, my builder supplied my Hansgrohe Raindance Select Showerpipe 240 for £540! I would really recommend you to pay them for installation only and not for supply - unless you get a breakdown of what you actually get for your money. HTH

Great, thank you everyone. We're being a bit lazy really and are tempted to use one of the 'luxury bathroom' companies that do everything, my second baby is due in the next couple of weeks and I'm not sure we have the energy or time to source everything ourselves and arrange the various tradespeople necessary. Although I realise that we'll be paying a premium for that decision.

We have budgeted about 1k for tiles but haven't really looked at any yet so we might be able to save a bit there and spend more elsewhere?

I did loads of research before choosing a shower door because flimsy ones drive me mad. In the end I chose this one from Simpsons, which still looks fantastic and works perfectly, four years on. I seem to remember I paid a bit extra to have it specially coated with some magical dirt-repellent so it wouldn't need cleaning, and it works which is ideal for a slattern like me.

noddyholder - I appreciate that Grohe/Hansgrohe isnt in everyones budget but just remember that the callout cost of a plumber to mend/replace a cheap tap is far more than the incremental cost of a decent tap to begin with.

We supply Crosswater where low pressure taps are a requirement and they are decent but definitely not in the Hansgrohe league. They arent that much cheaper either. I am sure a lot of people have had one without problems but thats a sample size of 1. We deal with many more of these taps and they simply arent built to the same quality standards as hansgrohe/grohe.

One another note, the grohe taps flooding plumbers merchants/screwfix isnt the same quality as their mainstream ranges. They compromise their quality to get the price point.

OP you shouldn't need various tradespeople, we have one person installing suite, laying the floor and tiling. What else are you having done?

Interesting about the taps, I'll get the brochures out and see what the best we can afford is. The company suggested Tavistock to us as fitting within our budget but I must admit I've never heard of them, or many rap manufacturers come to that.

Possum we also need a stud wall knocking down and a new one put in, some plastering and new lights. The company we're thinking of using can do all that for us whereas the plumber/fitters we've had quotes from would need to draft in extra people to do various jobs

I haven't only had one set of taps! I buy many. But the hansgrohe have been disappointing this time.

There is a company on ebay German called mybath which sometimes has clearance and they are v good quality for the price

We found an individual tradesman who could do all of the work, with the help on some days of another chap he worked with. I did some asking around locally and got 2/3 recommendations - went with him as price was good, saw eg of his work and v good references. Saved a lot of money via him on everything - I'd say 'I want this look, functionality but for half/third of the price' and he had so many contacts in the trade, he really came up trumps for us, often by sniffing out end of line batches of stock.

I chose Bristan taps for all my bathrooms.

I think Linea is one of the Showerlux range. We have a Showerlux shower enclosure and I've not been wildly impressed with it. It's much flimsier than the promotional literature (and the price!) would suggest.
We had a different make of door in another bathroom (I think it is HSK) and it's much better.
For taps, I like Crosswater. Love their designs.

For basins, baths etc Laufen is very good. I also like Dansani.

Showerlux moved production to Thailand some years back and since then its been a hit and miss affair. Its sold and priced as a mid-premium product which is definitely isnt any longer.

Showers are one area where British premium brands are probably the best in the world.

Very interesting thread - also choosing fittings and have a couple of questions:

1. I understand that Grohe/Hansgrohe are good brands but only suitable for high pressure so what are the equivalent quality brands that produce fittings for lowish pressure?

2. What are the British premium brands? I assume Aqualisa is one but their product line is relatively narrow - only showers no taps, etc. What would other brands be?

Thanks!

I'm looking at Pegler taps now, they seem a bit more reasonably priced than Grohe/ Hansgrohe and as they're British made I assume spare parts will be easy to come by if they are needed. I honestly never knew there were so many tap types in the world.

I've decided as well that we can probably get away without tiling one of our walls so should save a bit of money there in order to splurge elsewhere.

Thanks for everyone's input. It's really useful when you're as clueless as I am about this kind of thing

Another one here who would like to know what brands other than Aqualisa for showers.

We've just bought Ideal Standard. The plumber was a bit sniffy to begin with, he wanted us to have a Matki shower which we currently have & is not great but he concedes that he's impressed with the shower valves.

I originally went to a fancy showroom but they wanted to sell me the whole package including tiles & flooring at exorbitant prices.

It's been a massive hassle shopping around but it's saved us at least 50%.
Do you have a good plumber op? He might be able to do a lot of the leg work & have trade discount.

I bought back numbers of Kitchens, bedrooms and Bathrooms for useful info on taps, showers etc. I like Duravit a lot and Grohe or Hansgrohe taps/showers are good. I also looked at Kohler. I suggested Crosswater as you can get them a bit cheaper and we have not had any problems with them. I think a lot depends on what you want the bathroom to look like and what you want to spend. It is fairly easy to find a not too expensive sink and bath, but shower glass should be thick and the hinges to doors well made. Go and look an bathroom stores like a Ripples and CP Hart for ideas. You can then see what feels well made and what is over priced. I think some of the makes are functional rather than design led. It really depends on how you see the bathroom.